About Our Collaborative

The Community Palliative Care Learning Collaborative is a unique partnership between Atlantic Health System, a leading New Jersey health system, and neighboring post-acute facilities. Led by Atlantic Health System, the collaborative aims to demonstrate improved outcomes for patients at long-term care facilities by offering a year-long educational program.

This program was made possible through our generous donor, Marquis Health Consulting Services.

About Palliative Care

Palliate (verb): to relieve, soothe, alleviate, diminish; make a disease or its symptoms less severe or unpleasant

Palliative care is provided by a specially trained team of doctors, nurses, and other specialists who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of living with a serious illness – whether the patient is in the hospital, at home, or at a long-term care facility.

Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on the patient’s prognosis. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative or disease-directed treatment like chemotherapy, surgery, or dialysis.

Very often there are challenging and complex symptoms that accompany serious illness or are a result of the treatment for it. Some of these symptoms may be physical, such as pain, nausea, difficulty breathing or lack of appetite, but there are often other personal, social, or spiritual effects. Many people who are living with serious illness experience feelings of anxiety, depression, and difficulty coping or understanding the “big picture”. These are normal as well and palliative care addresses all of these.